The Rib Man’s “Holy Fuck” and “Christ on a Bike” Sauces

For those who have been following me for the last year, you will know one of my favourite characters of the London Street Food scene is The Ribman (Mark Geveax). This ex-butcher lost his leg (and consequently his former career) in a car accident, then turned to cooking ribs on the streets on London.

Mark has been dedicated in getting up when most other street food vendors are still in bed to start slow cooking ribs for lunchtime customers. Yes, his ribs and rib rolls are great, but his range of hot sauces have become so popular that he is looking to raise £10,000 to keep up with rising demand.

Hardeep Singh Kohli… suffering from Ribman hot wings

Kickstarter pledges start from £10 in exchange for 2 bottles of Holy Fuck, his “mildest” hot sauce, to £1,000 the hire The Ribman to come and cook ribs at your summer party for up to 50 guests! (UK Only).

Six days into the project he has over 300 pledges and is at 65% of his target. The money will be used to purchase and convert a shipping container into a kitchen and refrigerated storage unit.

Hardcore fans have been buying the £50 pledge for all the sauces including a one off ‘special’ for Kickstarter backers. However, for those of you “who think you’re hard enough” and have never tried these sauces, there is a £15 pledge which will get you the mildest and hottest sauce in the range to try. But bewarned. This is no Encona Hot Pepper sauce, this is a great deal hotter! If you can handle this you must have a lead lined mouth…

WARNING: This video shows you what happened to people who consumed just two hot wings coated with Judas It’s Scary Hot sauce from last year’s Blue Kitchen “Wings Eating” competition.

TO KICKSTART THE RIBMAN
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1475049250/the-ribman-kicking-it-up-a-level

Related Posts

The Rib Man
Ww: www.theribman.co.uk
Tw: @TheRibman

(Date: 19th April 2013)
This was the second week of Street Feast London.
(Time: 7.10pm)
Located at Merchant Yard this year, it is right next to Haggerston overground station. The weather was very kind on Friday (unlike the rainy Friday before!) and when I arrived, the place was pumping and you could smell delicious food in the air! Mmmmmm… Under the tent, most of the the tables were taken already and there were queues at several stalls.

I have heard great things about the Rib man and that he actually prepared 200 kilos of ribs for Street Feast that Friday. After sorting ourselves out with beer, we made the call to queue up for ribs. Instead of a £10 extra large rib meat roll, we decided to go all out and got a rack of ribs instead. The #holyf?!k sauce came highly recommended though I have heard scary stories of tears but we took a leap of faith and went for it.

(Time: 7.35pm)
When it came to our turn in the queue, I was salivating and couldn’t wait to get my hands dirty. Luckily for us, we booked a table at the Gin Store for 7.30pm and headed upstairs to tuck in!

(Time: 7.45pm)
There was silence. My colleague and I were sitting quietly munching through our ribs. I felt the heat hit me. The sweetness of the sauce is so pleasant and somehow balances out the heat. It was scorching as I felt the first tear roll down my cheek. ‘This is good…’, ‘Delicious’, ‘Oh my god it’s hot!’ and several sticking the tongue out action.

(Time 7.55pm)
There was a huge queue when the dude got to Haggerston and he was complaining that he won’t get in for about half an hour as the line went round the corner down a smaller street… In the end, it took him about 15 minutes and luckily for him, we left ONE rib as a taster.

(Time 8.30pm)
By the time it was half past eight, more friends came to join us after they got in from the queue. Perfect timing as we just left our table to do our second round of street feast. The Rib Man was sold out(!!!) by this time and the queues were increasing for some of the other stores.

With a vegetarian friend amongst us, there seemed to be limited choices for her. She ended up having the tofu and shitaake mushroom gyoza (aka dumplings) from Rainbo which she described as delicious. The boys went for ‘The Huge Pole’ and ‘The Big Frank’ from Big Apple hot dogs. There were condiments aplenty eg. Siracha chilli, tomato sauce, french mustard and the lot to please the crowd. Lastly, we had a taste of Bare Grillz skin on fries with green curry mayo (a very interesting flavour!) before we headed off to Dalston to boogie the night away.

Street Feast is on every Friday so grab a few friends and head down east after work for some awesome London street food. We will definitely be heading back there soon!

Here are our tips to survive Street Feast:
- get there early!!!
- bring lots of cash (There is a cash machine across the road but the queue gets massive!)
- be prepared to queue for yummy food. The Rib Man & Ben Spalding’s Stripped Back comes highly recommended.
– you can reserve a table for bigger groups of 8-12 in the Yard or try the Gin store if you have a group of 2-10.

Following their lunch parade, KERB finished off their launch day with a fantastic evening event of music, great food and great vibes at the West Canopy of Central St Martin’s College. It was an amazing night with music pumping from the Spit & Roast van and some of the best street food in London.

The Meringue Girls (On a night off!)

As usual the popular Yum Bun and Rib Man were overrun with insanely long queues. Fortunately I managed to get fed from the stars of this album. Pizza Pilgrims (with their epically creative nectarine, cinnamon and ricotta pizza) and the Healthy Yummies (flambé dived clams with bacon and mash).

It was also great to see the foodie community out in force and some vendors on their day off enjoying themselves. Big hello to Patty & Bun Joe who has been working on his next pop-up, and The Merange Girls in the crowd.

The West Canopy venue is awesome. Sheltered, away from the rain. I would love to see more events here, maybe once a month?

What does everyone else think?

RELATED POSTS:

• KERB StreetFood Launch Party tonight! 18h00-22h00!
• PHOTO ALBUM: Streetfood collective “KERB” launches with a lunchtime food truck parade! (40 Pictures)

QUESTION: Feedback on photos welcome… (good and bad). I shoot using an iPhone4 and a Sony DSC TX-10 Compact Camera and edit using Picassa.

KERB
Ww: www.kerbfood.com
Tw: @KERB_

UPDATE SUN 30-Sep-2012: I gave barman Eduardo a bottle of The Rib Man’s insanely hot “Judas It’s Scary Hot” sauce. This was made only for the Hot Wings Eating Competition and has a WHOLE KILO of Naga Chilli added to the mix. This sauce has a huge delay in the heat arriving… you have been warned. For a video to what happens when you eat it see this video

VIDEO: What happens when you eat #JudasItsScaryHot wings?

Holy Fuck, Christ on a Bike… it’s a Bloody Mary!

This is a Bloody Mary, a familiar hangover quencher to most of you. However, this vodka and tomato juice doesn’t just contain a regular ‘spice mix’. It’s been SUPERCHARGED with The Rib Man’s “Christ on a Bike” hotsauce!

To the uninitiated, The Rib Man is a bit of a superstar in the streetfood world. The one legged ex-butcher is famous for awesome rib rolls, racks of ribs and his hot sauces. He has a range of hot sauces starting with a non-spicy BBQ sauce and then working up to some blaphamy inducing sauces called ‘Holy Fuck’, ‘Christ On A Bike’, ‘Holy Mother of God’ and the limited edition ‘Judas it’s Scary Hot’ each one is hotter than the next with an ever increasing percentage of Naga Bhut Jolokia Chillis (famously known as the Ghost Chilli).

There was even a Hot Wings Eating Contest held last week with contestants suffering from wings basted in his firey sauces. Click here if you like videos of people in immense chilli pain.

Bar Galante is affiliated with the neighbouring argentinian steakhouse Gaucho Grill. To me, they are a little bit of a local secret as they make the some of the best cocktails in the area. Go in and visit top bartender Eduardo Garcia Miras (pictured) and ask for a Japanese Purgatory. Awesome drink!

VENUE: Bar Galante
Ad: 87 Sloane Avenue, South Kensington, London, SW3 3DX (map)
Ww: bargalante.com
Tw: @BarGalante

HOT SAUCE: The Rib Man
Ww: www.theribman.co.uk
Tw: @TheRibMan

The Rib Man / The Blues Kitchen – Wings Eating Competition
111-113 Camden High Street, Camden, London, NW1 7JN

This is what happens when those insane enough try eating plates of Hot Wings basted in The Rib Man’s range of hot sauces.

The Blues Kitchen in Camden held this event with popular street food vendor The Rib Man to hold their inaugural “Hot Wings Eating Competition”

With five rounds of ever increasing spice intensity, each contestant had to consume 2 wings smothered in sauces by The Rib Man, then wait for 5 minutes between each round with no wipes, liquids or assistance. Each set of wings had been swimming in hot sauce (except for the first), all were supercharged with ever increasing levels of Naga Bhut Jolokia chilli. Also known as the ‘Ghost Chilli’, this man-made hybrid is rated at 330,000–1,000,000 Scovilles, approximately 400 x hotter than Tabasco.

Here are the sauces for each round.

• SAUCE 1: “BBQ”
• SAUCE 2: “Holy Fuck”
• SAUCE 3: “Christ on a Bike”
• SAUCE 4: “Holy Mother Of God”
• SAUCE 5: “Judas It’s Scary Hot”

Impressively, only one contestant didn’t make it to the finish line. Congratulations to all the utterly mad participants!

NOTE TO THE UTTERLY INSANE: If you want to try all these sauces yourself, all of them are available from The Rib Man except the last sauce, “Judas It’s Scary Hot”, DOUBLE the amount of Naga chilli and made specially as a one off for the competition!

For more photos of the event:

PHOTO ALBUM: @TheRibMan Insane Hot Wings Comp (47 Pictures)

More Info

HOT SAUCES: The Rib Man
Ww: http://www.theribman.co.uk/
Tw: @TheRibMan

VENUE: The Blues Kitchen
Ad: 111-113 Camden High Street, Camden, LOndon, NW1 7JN (map)
Ww: www.theblueskitchen.com
Tw: @TheBluesKitchen

Fancy some hot wings? The Blues Kitchen teamed up with popular street food vendor The Rib Man to hold their inaugural “Hot Wings Eating Competition”

With five rounds of ever increasing spice intensity, each contestant had to consume 2 wings smothered in sauces by The Rib Man, then wait for 5 minutes between each round with no wipes, liquids or assistance. Each set of wings had been swimming in hot sauce (except for the first), all were supercharged with ever increasing levels of Naga Bhut Jolokia chilli. Also known as the ‘Ghost Chilli’, this man-made hybrid is rated at 330,000–1,000,000 Scovilles, approximately 400 x hotter than Tabasco.

Here are the sauces for each round.

• SAUCE 1: “BBQ”
• SAUCE 2: “Holy Fuck”
• SAUCE 3: “Christ on a Bike”
• SAUCE 4: “Holy Mother Of God”
• SAUCE 5: “Judas It’s Scary Hot”

Impressively, only one contestant didn’t make it to the finish line. Congratulations to all the utterly mad participants!

NOTE TO THE UTTERLY INSANE: If you want to try all these sauces yourself, all of them are available from The Rib Man except the last sauce, “Judas It’s Scary Hot”, DOUBLE the amount of Naga chilli and made specially as a one off for the competition!

More Info

HOT SAUCES: The Rib Man
Ww: http://www.theribman.co.uk/
Tw: @TheRibMan

VENUE: The Blues Kitchen
Ad: 111-113 Camden High Street, Camden, LOndon, NW1 7JN (map)
Ww: www.theblueskitchen.com
Tw: @TheBluesKitchen

Brick Lane Market is heaving with people today. It’s as if this is the last glimpse of sunshine that us Londoners will see for the year… (Which is probably very close to the truth).

Luckily I was around early today 12h00. But if you were heading down here to get some Ribman Rib Rolls you’re out of luck. The last 2 rolls were at 13h10 today, much to the disappointment of the queue. Especially disappointing to the bunch right behind who turned on one of their group with the phrase… “and you said 10 minutes wouldn’t make any difference”.

The Rib Man
Ww: www.theribman.co.uk
Tw: @TheRibMan

WHERE TO GET YOUR RIBS:
THU: Eat Street (Lunch)
FRI: Street Feast London (Evening)
SUN: Brick Lane Market (Lunch) (map of exact location)

If you recognise the twitter hashtag #ThursdayIsRibday you will know that this glorious ‘Rib Roll’ stuffed full of succulent meat from The Rib Man at Eat Street today!

The Rib Man has been quietly feeding Londoners with his pork ribs for a few years now. With a ever growing popularity, this ex-butcher certainly knows a thing or two about quality meat. He offers full racks, half racks, rib meat rolls and rib meat wraps from pigs that are “outdoor reared on Norfolk and Suffolk farms”.

For those who crave chilli, take a look as his ‘Christian Offending’ range of hot sauces. The mildest, “Holy Fuck Sauce” is pretty intense for many, the follow up “Christ on a Bike” turns up the heat to hardman levels and the “Holy Mary Mother Of God” sauce is just blasphemous to all but the most insane scoville-scale worshippers.

If you’re going to visit, beware, his recent appearance on Lorraine Pascale’s TV show seems to have pumped up his lunchtime queues. Even The Rib Man himself was taken aback today at today’s line of 40+ snaking down Eat Street!

VENDOR: The Rib Man
Ww: www.theribman.co.uk
Tw: @TheRibMan

WHERE TO GET YOUR RIBS:
THU: Eat Street (Lunch)
FRI: Street Feast London (Evening)
SUN: Brick Lane Market (Lunch) (map of exact location)

LOCATION: Eat Street
Ww: www.eat.st
Tw: @EatStreet

Stripped Back
Street Feast London, (FRIDAY NIGHT MARKET – ​17h00 – 00h00) Thames House, Hartwell Street, E8 3DU

It’s not often that you have dinner with The Rib Man, a street food legend, in the middle of a car park, served by a Gordon Ramsay trained chef! This is the beauty of the vibrant London food scene.

The Stripped Back table is certainly generating a lot of interest, Mama’s Jerk Station and Jonathan Downey (owner of Milk & Honey) have also come over to sample their offering. Considering that Ben confessed he’d be “happy if 10 people showed up”, I think he can put his fears aside.

Stripped Back at Street Feast London is a simple concept. Take one chef out of his Michelin starred kitchen, put him in a Dalston car-park where he serves a 4 course menus, no reservations. raw, personal & stripped back cooking

VENDOR DETAILS

Stripped Back
Tw: @_strippedback

VENUE DETAILS

Street Feast London
Ww: www.streetfeastlondon.com
Tw: @StreetFeastLDN

#OneTweetReview @BillyFranksCoUk #HolyMotherOfGod Jerky – Damn! This is tasty, and mightily spicy snack, but with plenty of meaty flavour.

June 30, 2012 at 08:53PM via Twitter http://twitter.com/wilkes888/status/219156619966156800

Potentially pithy commentary could follow later…

June 28, 2012 at 01:14PM via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/Mastg-Ccxh/

Potentially pithy commentary could follow later…

June 28, 2012 at 11:05AM via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/Mad9u3ic-H/

Maroush is my late night ‘go to’ for food en-route home nr Knightsbridge. However, I’ve just discovered that it works damn well with a touch of The Rib Man’s forthcoming “Holy Mary Mother of God” hot sauce

In conclusion, lamb plus hot sauce is a winner!

For those of you who aren’t familiar The Rib Man and his range of sauces. Here’s a potted history. If you’re an ultra religious Christians then turn away now. His lightest hot sauce is called “Holy Fuck”, his current hottest is called “Christ on a Bike”, and his latest sauce will be called “Holy Mary Mother of God”

[Full Review to follow...]

Maroush
Ww: www.maroush.com/beauchamp-restaurants
Tw: @MaroushV

The Rib Man
Ww: www.TheRibMan.co.uk
Tw: @TheRibMan

June 20, 2012 at 06:02AM via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/MFU8AdCcx5/

Pimped homemade cheese

As well as being in the running for the awards, I had also been asked to provide some of my homemade cheese to feed the hungry foodies gathered at the event – supplying whole cheeses for tasting, as well as collaborating with Kiren Puri of the Bladebone Inn to create “Goat’s Cheese Balls” (beetroot wrapped in goat’s cheese flavoured with wood sorrel, then covered in breadcrumbs).  Kiren also very kindly helped my rather basic cheese presentation by adding some hand-picked wood sorrel and pansies.

Spot the homemade cheese!

Since I’m a home cheese maker, all of the cheese I make goes either to friends and family, or interested local foodies – so it was pretty nerve-wracking offering it up in this way, but I’ve got to admit it felt good seeing people’s surprised faces as they taste it and then went back for seconds!

Goat’s Cheese Balls

Sadly I missed Kiren’s “Goat Cheese Balls”, as they were seemingly all nabbed before coming out of the kitchen!  They look pretty amazing though.

So, on to the results!  Competition in the “Honorary YBF” category was extremely tough, and was judged by the Young British Foodie founders – Chloe Scott, Lily Jones of Lily Vanilli Bakery and Amy Thorne.  The contestants were:

• Ben Vear (@benjaminvear)- a fourth generation ice cream maker, whose family have been producing award winning ice cream for more than 87 years.  I managed to chat to Ben quite a bit at the awards, who described his idea of building a “multi-sensory” ice cream, with sea spray and various different flavours and textures being revealed as you eat
• Nick Weston (@nick_weston)- a hunter / gatherer / forager, who provided foraged pickled ash keys and pine needle vinegar as a starter for award attendees
• Mark Gevaux (@theribman) – also known as “The Rib Man”, responsible for quite literally the best ribs in London.  Usually parked up on Brick Lane, for the awards Mark provided an endless queue of hungry foodies with tasty pork rolls, covered with his famous hot sauce
• Jenny Dawson (@rubiesinrubble) – an inspirational lady who produces a range of  chutneys & jams, handmade from surplus fruit & vegetables with the aim of providing work for long-term unemployed people.  She has a stall at Borough Market, where I’m hoping to find her to discuss a “surplus cheese” project
• Ole Martin Hansen (@hansen_lydersen) – the salmon-smoking Norwegian who I featured alongside in the Observer Food Monthly last year.  He provided a vast number of smoked salmon canapes for the hungry masses, all presented perfectly
• Andy Mahoney (@handyface) – me!

Getting ready to announce the results

And the winner is … well, there were two – Ole and Mark! Congratulations to you both, very well deserved!

As someone who does this solely in my spare time, it was a great honour to be nominated alongside such established professionals and really inspiring to meet them on the night.  Stay tuned for news of our future collaborations.

With London weather as good as this, it seems a sin to cook in the kitchen instead of firing up the BBQ nestled in my uber small garden. I feel for the neighbours upstairs as they slam their windows shut to stop the smoke from billowing in, but I just can’t help myself. The unmistakable taste of charred meat on raw flame is too big a temptation to resist.

Last nights offering was slow cooked Pork Ribs, basted in the deliciously fiery but flavoursome Holy F@*k sauce. Not for the faint hearted, these ribs will leave you tingling for hours.

For those of you not already acquainted with Holy F@*k Sauce, this kick ass hot sauce is the creation of The Rib Man - a street food god hailed as serving up some of the best ribs and rib rolls in London.  The sauce is made with Scotch Bonnet and Naga Bhut Jolokia chills - the hottest in the world….reach for the milk!

The Rib Man has gained himself a bit of a cult following of late, and his special brew sauce is being put to the test in all manner of dishes, from French Toast to Burgers to Pizza. My tribute to the cause are these ribs – slow cooked in the oven with a few aromatics for a couple of hours and then smothered in the fiery sauce before finishing on the flame.

This is the way to do ribs – they were MEAN – meat falling off the bone, with a charred, sticky, fiery hot coating. The perfect distraction for all this summer sunshine if there ever was one.

Simply done – I cooked the whole rib in the oven on a low temperature for 2 hours – with 1 roughly chopped leak underneath, 8 peppercorns, 5 cloves, a couple of star anise and a good glug of water (covered tightly in foil).

Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little, then pour any of the baking tray juices into a saucepan and reduce until you have thicker syrupy sauce.  Add some Holy Fuck Sauce (how much is up to your discretion) and a squeeze of ketchup and cook out for a further minute or so.  Baste the ribs generously, and place on the BBQ. Turn the ribs and rebaste every couple of minutes to guarantee a deliciously sticky and charred rib.

My only advice is to do more than you think as they’ll be gone before you know it!